


Promise Me Forever

by mage_989



Series: Que Sera Sera [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2267277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mage_989/pseuds/mage_989
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk went to the launching of the Enterprise B and never came home.  Spock and McCoy are left to pick up the pieces of their relationship and try to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise Me Forever

Spock watched a fly buzz outside the window then fly away to the horizon where the sun was setting. The fly had the freedom of movement that Spock himself was currently without thanks to McCoy’s actions. Their kitchen table had never felt more tiny and cramped with nothing to do, but sit next to McCoy and listen to the ticking of the clock. Even for a Vulcan it was too much. 

“How long will this continue?” Spock asked. 

“How long will what continue?”

Spock held up their arms, displaying the handcuffs that joined them together at the wrists.

“How long will you continue to keep us chained together like a pair of criminals?”

“Until I know that it isn’t the one thing keeping you here.” McCoy answered defiantly and went back to poking at his food that had long since gone cold.

It was the third day of this and Spock’s patience had finally run its course. He had indulged McCoy’s illogical method of closeness long enough. Swiftly moving his hand over McCoy’s he twisted the band in between their wrists and pushed down.

The band snapped and Spock stood up from his chair, raising an eyebrow at McCoy.

“Who keeps who here, Doctor?”

McCoy eyes went wide with shock for a moment and then darkened with anger. He shoved his chair and back and slammed his hands on the table.

“Fine! Then take your pointed-eared face of stone out that door and leave again for all I care!”

With that he turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen through the living room and on to the balcony. He paced around angrily for a bit before sitting down in one of the chairs with his back to the door. He sat out there long into the night; even as the chilly air settled over the city, along with a late spring storm. 

Spock watched him solemnly and when it became clear McCoy had no intention of moving Spock too went out in the drizzling mist. 

“Leonard, please come in before you catch your death.”

McCoy didn’t move.

Spock came over and sat down in front of his husband, forcing McCoy to look at him.

“Why are you convinced that I will leave you, Leonard?”

“Because you’ve done it before.”

“That was a long time ago. I was a different man.”

“Yeah, and who made you that different man hmm? Who helped you accept that ‘simple feeling’?” 

“I don’t understand surely you can’t be jealous of Jim-”

“No, I’m mad at him for needing to be the hero one last time and leaving me with a closed off computer as a companion!”

Spock took a deep breath and forced himself not to rise to McCoy’s bait. Humans reacted in strange ways when grieving and sparking off another argument now would achieve nothing. 

“Why is it so important that I show my grief openly to you?”

“Because I need to know that this matters! That I matter! That it isn’t all over because Jim is-isn’t…”

Spock eyes were wide as he reached over and hugged McCoy tightly. 

“After all this time, you still don’t have faith in my feelings for you?”

McCoy sighed deeply as his anger left him. “No, no, Spock, I know you love me I…I just don’t know if it’s enough now.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because things have always been different for you and Jim than they are for us! For all the years we’ve known each other it was always you two as a unit. The best command team in the fleet right? I know I wasn’t a third wheel or something like that, that this was equal and everything, but you and I we’ve always had our differences that’s no secret. When we were ready we came together, the three of us, and now I don’t know how we can go on without him.” 

His hands curled into fists. 

“And dammit we aren’t supposed to go on without him! It was over, Spock, we were done. After all these years of watching him run off to go get beat up and then patching him back up it wasn’t going to happen anymore. We were finally safe. He has no right to leave us like this…it’s not fair!”

McCoy grabbed Spock’s shirt tightly and sobbed into his shoulder.

“It’s not fair.”

“I know.”

McCoy’s body shook with sobs and the chill of the rain so Spock quickly got him inside. 

When the sobs had eased off McCoy got the keys for the cuffs and removed them properly. Then they helped each other out of their wet clothes and into dry pyjamas. Gently rubbing cream over each other’s wrists where the cuffs had rubbed the skin raw.

McCoy had just come into the bedroom after putting the cream away and saw Spock wince and bring his hand to his head. He rushed over and grabbed his shoulder. 

“Spock, you’re in pain.”

“It is not-”

The grip on Spock’s shoulder tightened.

“Don’t close yourself behind those Vulcan walls. Not now.”

Spock sighed and sat down on the bed, McCoy coming with him.

“It is difficult to explain. As you know Vulcans form many bonds because of our telepathy.” 

“I know we share such a link,” he said, touching his temple.

“Yes, but you were right when you said that for Jim and I things were different. With Jim…our minds were so compatible the bond was so strong. Now that such a strong mental tie has been broken by his passing that bond…reaches. It looks for an end that will never be found. I have never experience such a sensation and I am unsure how to endure it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Our bond is still here we can strengthen it to compensate.”

“I know, Leonard, but my mind still seeks him. I have dreamt of him so completely these past nights…only to wake up and know that he isn’t there. What I feel is an immeasurable loss. I wished to spare you that pain.”

“A pain shared is a pain halved isn’t that how you like to say it?”

Spock gave no answer and McCoy reached for his face putting his fingers against the meld points. 

“Let me help you.”

Spock nodded and put his hand up as well, and McCoy opened his mind fully.

_Jim appeared to him in a shimmer of gold as the transporter finished its work._

_“You couldn’t send a shuttle?”_

_Jim shrugged. “The shuttle bay is undergoing repairs.”_

_“Just my luck to have to join this ship the hard way. Five years in space god help me.”_

_Jim just smiled and put his hands on McCoy’s shoulders._

_“Welcome aboard, Bones.”_

The memories come fast and furious then, glimpses of missions, of words said that had new meaning now. 

_“In all the universe three million, million galaxies like this. And in all of that, perhaps more, only one of each of us. Don’t destroy the one named Kirk.”_

_“He gave his life to save others…not a bad way to go.”_

_“Dammit, Bones, I need you…badly.”_

_He and Jim sitting at the edge of the temple steps, hoping against hope that any moment now Spock would come out of his retraining and be their Spock again._

_Then all three of them sitting around a campfire as Jim contemplated the cosmos._

_“I knew I wouldn’t die because the two of you were with me. I’ve always known I’ll die alone.”_

McCoy gasped as Spock broke off the meld and wrapped his arms around the Vulcan.

“We weren’t there, Spock. We left him alone. This is our fault.”

Spock could only nod and pull McCoy in tighter to him. Indeed they had declined the invitation to the launching, citing other tasks that had seemed so much more important at the time.

“Don’t hide things like this from me,” McCoy whispered.

“Never again, I promise.”

Spock ran his hand through McCoy hair and kissed him softly.

“Also I promise we shall be that old bickering married couple who sit in the park and feed birds who already have sufficient nutrients.” Spock looked in McCoy eyes, wanting him to know that he meant ever word he spoke. “We will remain together, Leonard, we know it is what Jim wished for us.”

“Thank you.”

***

It was late when McCoy finally awoke the next morning. Just as Spock said the dreams of Jim were vivid and McCoy had spent half the night breathing in a cold sweat and just staring at the empty pillow beside him. The other side of the bed was empty now too, but the heavy scent of incenses let him know that Spock was meditating in the other room and McCoy left him to it. He knew Spock needed some time to collect his thoughts. So McCoy put on some coffee and went into the living room and sat down in his favourite chair. 

He reached down to pick up the PADD he had left on the table, hoping to get some more work done on his manuscript. He spotted a book lying next to the PADD. Many of the pages were dog-eared and the cover was worn. It was one of Jim’s favourites and McCoy had been thinking about getting him a new copy for his birthday. 

McCoy leaned back in the chair as his chest constricted and hot tears began running down his face. He told himself that losing someone you loved should hurt, because it meant their life had been meaningful. Breathing deeply he reached for the ring on his pinky finger and twisted it around, reminding himself that one day the pain would fade and only the good memories and the feeling of having been loved by Jim would remain. However, today was obviously not that day.

He got up and walked over to the small liquor cabinet, looking for something to help numb the pain a little. He unlocked the cabinet and looked at the small array of bottles it contained. He picked the closest one, running his finger along the label as he read the year. 

As he held the bottle though McCoy began to wonder if he really should be putting that into his body now. He wasn’t a young man anymore and although neither was Spock he was still barely middle aged for a Vulcan. For him all signs pointed to a fully Vulcan lifespan. People told McCoy that he had aged well, but he knew his body didn’t recover as quickly as it used to. That if there ever was a time to go on a major health kick and stick to it this was it. His stress levels would go down with retiring, in theory, he would have to establish new routines, new habits. It would be for the best. It would keep him here longer or at least increase the odds of it. 

Decision made he put the bottle away and locked the cabinet back up. Then he dropped the key into a glass bowl onto top of it. He would leave that key there, it was promise he was making to himself.

Spock promised that they would be an old bickering married couple and McCoy was going to make sure they were that couple for as long as possible.

The End


End file.
